LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. I 

M^* -'- lops^s^'i |fo- 

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. | 



THE NEW PIANO. 



PKINTED BX 

W. a. JOHNSTON & CO. 

PiTTSBUKGH, PA. 



c, iiiuuA' 



THE 



NEW PIANO 



;'^ 



Etc. 



By JAMES M. JN^ACRUM. 




"To hear the lute well touched, or iartful voice, 
Warble immortal notes, aud Tuscau air — 
He who of those delights can judge, and i^pare 
To interpose them oft, is not unwise." — 

Milton. 
"MYj'HoK^aE SDBSEciviE? '— Very fine! — 
It would be, truly, if 'Spare Hours' were mine! 
But when so many obstacles as nine 
Stand in the way ! " — 

"Nine what? — You mean the Muses?" 
" Ha ! ha ! — the very absurdity amuses ! — 
You thinking of the family of myths ; 
/, of the more (xpensive oni; — the Smiths!" 

Smith's «Life-Deama.' New Edition. 



PITTSBURGH: 
ROBERT S. DAVIS & CO. 

1871. 






Entered accordiug to Act of Congress, in the year 1871, by 

JAMES M. MACRUM, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, 

- for the Western District of Pennsylvania. 



THE ]^EW PIANO. 

TO . 



"We have also sound-liouses, where we practise and demon- 
strate all sounds and their generation. "Wa have harmonies of 
quarter-sounds, and lesser slides of sounds; divers instruments, 
some sweeter than any you have; with bells and rings that are 
dainty and sweet. Wo make divers trembling.s and warbling of 
sounds, which in their original are entire ; we represent and im- 
itate all articulate sounds and letters, and the voices and notes of 
blasts and birds. We have also divers strange and artificial 
echoes, reflecting the voice many times, and as it were tossing it; 
and some tliat uive back the voicT louder than it cime, some shril- 
ler, and som" deeper; yea, some rendering the voice differing in 
the letters or articulate sound from that they receive. We have 
also means to convey sounds in trunks and pipes in strange lines 
and distances." — Bacox. Nho Atlantis. 

— " Highest of all, when his outward and his inward endeavor 
are one : when we can name him A.rtist ; not earthly craftsman 
only, but inspired Thinker, who with haavon-made Implement 
conquers Heave a for us ! " — Garlyle. 



Would'st tbou fiad a new and better, 
As thy cliosen iustrament, 
When so much to our content 

Thou canst charm us with the old ? 



6 TnE NEW PIANO. 

Well, if Art is yet thy debtor, 

It is riglit to 'have and hold' 
What device or work soever thou canst find 
Anywhere, in all its borders, to the mould 
Of thy mind. 

Ere long, beneath thy fingers, 

Whose thrilling touch they '11 own 
As a power before unknown. 
The almost sensitive keys 
Will release the hidden singers 
That are prisoned in the chords, — 
And they, rushing to the words 

Of thy song, through all degrees, 
In accompaniment to it, 

Will bring echoes of all voices, 
Of the joy that most rejoices, 
Of the grief most exquisite. 

And — not echoes, but — the real 
Living voices of the Ideal, — 
Of all that is most perfect, of all that is most fit, 



THE NEW PIANO. 7 

Spirit-voices from the rivers and the fouutainSi 
From the valleys and the mountains, 
From deep-veined mines, from leafy woods, 

From heaven's expanse and ocean's, 
,From vocal nature's many moods, 
And life's manifold emotions. 

Could wishing to be near thee 
Avail — then I should hear thee 
In the hour 
Of thy power, 
When the spirit of song comes o'er thee — 
When that spirit, which is worthy 
Of the wisest and the best, 

Gives thee power ! — 
Oh, how blessed to be blest 
In that hour of inspiration, 
Thought's and feeling's exaltation, 
By thy voice, and all its witching, 
And that Instrument enriching 
The channed air around with 'concord of sweet 
sounds ' — 



8 THE NEW PIANO. 

Of such wide and varied meaning, that the bounds 
Of all life and visible nature would not bound the 

exploration 
Of the 'enquiring spirit' seeking their interpreta- 
tion — 

As thy light, swift fingers running, 
With a weird, unconscious cunning, 
O'er the trembling ivory keys. 
From thine eyes, thy lips, and these, 
All the eager soul of gladness. 
All the heavy heart of sadness. 
Come revealed in lightning flashes. 
And in sackcloth and in ashes. 
As the lights and shadows blending 
Alternate and spread around. 
Made like real living creatures by the magic power 

of sound ! — 
Low as earth and high as heaven — the beginning and 

the ending, 
Like that visionary ladder whereon the prophet sees 
The angels of God ascending and descending! 



THE KEW PIANO. 9 

Oh, the glamour of that cunning — 
Of those light, swift fingers running 
Their mazy, mystic rounds — 
And that ' concord of sweet sounds ' 
Of beautiful and manifold expression — from the play 

Of the gently-falling spray 
On the surface, to the depth of the mighty undulation, 
When 'deep calleth unto deep, ' and the awful, wrath- 
ful form 

Of the angel of the storm. 
Robed with midnight and eclipse, plucks from heaven 
the light of day ! 

Oh, the glamour of that cunning — 
Of those light, swift fingers running 
Their mazy, mystic rounds — 
And that 'concord of sweet sounds' — 
When, all past achievement shunning 
Comparison before thee. 
In that rapture coming o'er thee, 
Each listener 's thy captive at once! — Like one fated, 



10 THE NEW PIANO. 

He cannot choose but listen — listening to be fasci- 
. nated, 

Encircled by the magic of thy song ! 
He feels that all richest and rarest gifts are thine, 
By prerogative, or birthright, or some right divine ; 
All that is beautiful, and gentle, and strong. 
And born with the noblest, and never can belong — 
No, never can belong to the unworthy 1 

But, as thus the listener's heart. 
All grateful in its ecstacy of feeling, 
Does homage to the genius of the Aiitist and the 

Poet, — 
(Two voices of the immortals ever to us revealing 
The soul of Nature in the forms of Art) — 
Into the heart thus feeling, 
Let another grateful thought 
Enter with its plea, appealing 
For one whoso work preceded — 
That it be not forgot ! — 
Let the theme inspire the Poet 



THE NEW PIANO. 1 1 

Well and worthily to show it — 
How it was that ere Genius the crowning triumph 
won, 

That work the Artist needed, 
The Artizan had done? 

O, let the Poet tell 
Right worthily and well, 
As he ought, 
How the noble, patient Worker, of the deep pro- 
phetic thought, 
The silent, unnamed hero, pondered deeply while 
he wrought. 

Till at length from the known 
He found the way to the unknown ! 

O, let the Poet tell 

Right worthily and well. 
How the skillful Worker brought 
Those diligent hands of his to strive amain 
To work after the /6>?'6- working of his brain, 



12 THE KEW riANO. 

Whose eager thought was evermore outrunning 
All that Diligence with merely hands could do 1 
How his work was not in vain 
With those helpful, diligent two, 
To overtake that one — TnouGHT — which always was 
forerunning ! — 

Is now and ever known 
By the witness of the fact which that overtaken 

thought, 
Followed through failure to triumph, through weak- 
ness to strength, 
Followed always in faith without faltering, brought 
Forth at length ! 
For at length the 'right hand's cunning,' 
And the mastery of skill, 
And the earnestness of will, 
Carried everything before them, and the longed-for 
prize was won : 

The Seeker found what he had sought, 
The Worker his work had done. 
When a whole orchestra of iustrumcnts he wrought 
Into OKE 1 



THE NEW PIANO. 13 

O, let the Poet tell, 
Riglit worthily and well, 
How the Worker his work had done — 
When the seven poor strings which had wearied the 
fingers 

Of all the Singers, 
Through all the ages, 
He multiplied to seven times seven ! 
(Erewhile some kindly soul — for such, thank Heav- 
en ! — 

Pitying 'the ills 
That flesh is heir to,' invented quills! 
For which, in their prayers. 
All grateful players 
Mu^t have prayed. Bless his fingers ! ) 
But TnouGHT, the inventive creative, worked on — 

And by slow, sure stages, 
Gained one and another 'coigne of vantage'; — until 
The fulness of victory at lergth was won ! 

' Twas won 
By him, whoe'er he was, th' Unnamed, tli' Unknown 



14 THE NEW PIANO. 

Whose genius, prescient of the great event, 
Seized and subjected to the will 
Of the Aktist, in one instrumerd, 
The myriad diverse voices — 
The unlike, but kindred voices — 
Wherein Art rejoices. 

' Twas won 
When all these 
He had seized, or taught the Artist to seize, — 
The breathings of that mystic ' shell, 
That spake so sweetly and so well,' 
Wherein, 'twas said, 'some god must dwell, '- 
And the clarion notes of the reed — and the thrill 
Of the Orphean lyre — and, diviner still. 
The all-compassing voices of music that fill 
The organ's vast labyrinths, —when all these 
He had seized, or taught the Artist to seize, 
And, by the touch of yon magical keys. 
At will to imprison —at will to release — 
Surely, the fulness of victory was won ! 



THE NEW PIANO. 15 

On all this past of human effort thou may'st ponder, 
'Mid thy happiness to see 
That the full result is yonder 
Made to serve thee — made thine own — 
A thing for joy — for wonder — 
In its power, in its compass, in its tone, — 

In all the rich resources of the empire of sweet sounds, 
Which to its utmost bounds. 
Is subjected to thee. 

And the Wokker hath his meed, 
And his work is magnified, 
When the fairest fingers glide. 
With a weird and cunning speed, 
O'er the smooth elephant or pearl, where his slower 

fingers plied 
Their task, ere yet was any task for other fingers 

there ! 
Aye, the Woeker hath his meed, when he hears 

What, to his enraiDturcd ears. 
Sounds like voices of the angels, like enchantment 
of the air, 



16 THE NEW PIANO. 

When the hand of lady fair 
Strikes free the imprisoned music from the silent 
strings he tied. 

Fair Artist ! happy Artizan I well done ! 
And yet there is another. Not alone 
Are ye two on this mission sent; 
To three the perfect word is given ; 
One more high gift, with yours, must come from 

heaven — 
That one, perchance, the highest gift of all ; — 
The thought of the Pokt must be lent, 
Else both voice and instrument 
Would be lifeless and meaningless to answer our call. 
As the cold, dead stones in the wall. 
But the Poet gives his thought, 
With its hidden soul of meaning, its beauty of power, 
And Music, as she ought, 
Charms the air in her bower, 
Which is filled with the light of the presence of 
thought. 



THE NEW PIANO. 17 

No lieart unloving and unloved, 
No self-sufficing, isolated lieart. 
Unsympathetic and unmoved, 
'Mid human scenes of grief and pain, 
Or joy and pleasure, can sustain 
The cunning hand, the teeming brain, 
The heritage of Art. 

Such never were the worshippers 
Of Beauty — and are none of hers ; 

And it were vain 
To search for such in all her train : 
Throughout her wide domain 
There's fellowship — there's sympathy — but no 
Cold isolation : — it must needs be so ; 
For Pan sings there ev'n as of old, and lo ! 
There, hand in hand, the sister Muses go. 
Each aiding each, and wont to call, 
When needed, on the help of all. 
And, first and last, 'tis sovran Art's 
Divinest intuition to foreknow 

3 



18 THE NEW PIANO. ' 

The occult affinities, 
The unanticipated harmonies, 
The 'curious felicities' 
Of things that never yet 
Have had their secret uttered in our hearts. 
The kindred strangers that have never met, 
She finds and brhigs together, having set 
The mark of kinship on them evermore. 

She enters, as by privilege and right, 
Into the heart's recesses, and the mind's : 

Where deepest mysteries are hid. 
Deeper than labyrinth or pyramid 
E'er buried in the most secret crypt of all, 

She comes and finds 
No barrier, and no darkness — that a glance 
Suffices not to pierce v^ith radiance. 

Such glance of hers — an let it fall 
Whcreso it will — ev'n into the abyss 
Whence never answer came, nor interstice 



THE NEW riANO. 19 

Admitted light — tlie Eternal Silences 

To us vouclisafing neither No nor Yes, — 

Where Thought had long stood brooding o'er 
The darkness in despair, its plummet lost 
In the depth below; — ev'n there, where to the utter- 
most 
Night has had sway, and light has never shone — 
Swift as the glance, 
Behold the apocalypse of light ! 

'Tis hers to give the ecstatic sight, 
The poet's, painter's vision bright 
With hues of heaven:— and ere its flight 
Leave us again with earth and night. 
By fragmentary glimpses oft she '11 show 
The first faint outlines, hint by hint, 
And last the coloring, tint by tint, 
Of that ideal-perfect whole, 
Whose archetype the poet-artist's soul 
Seeks and must find, ere any living form 



20 THE NEW PIANO. 

Beneath the Aetist's plastic hand can grow, 
Or beautiful life the daedal marble warm. 

'Tis thus, by Art's 
High prescience, the predestined parts, — 
Howso opaque, discolored, crude, 
In substance, or in form how rude 
And shapeless-seeming, seen by common eyes, — 
Grouped by some occult law, evolve a whole 
Perfect as lucent crystal. Even thus. 

The same high prescience guiding us. 
Her votaries, in many a favored hour 

We share her power, 
And hope inspiring better effort, then. 
The true ideal farthest is pursued. 

And nearest reached. Then, too, is sought 
Far off, or near — above, beneath, around, — 
And sought with more than eagle's piercing ken, — 
The GOOD, the teue, the beautiful — the thought, 
Ethereal and intense 
Alike with passion and intelligence, 



THE NEW PIANO. 21 

Which Plato dreamed and loved ; — and when 

Thus sought 

And found, 
Glowing at white-heat like an altar-coal, 

'Tis brought 
Into our 'heart of hearts.' 

Well knows she how to choose, 
And fitliest put to fittest use, 

Whatever sage has taught 
Or hero wrought ; 
Well knows she how the most discordant tone 
May be subdued and won 
At length to sweetest unison. 
For her gay Fancy soars elate, 
Grave Thought is called to meditate, 
Imagination to create : — 
Down to the small, 
, Up to the great. 
She knoweth all ; — 
And, above all, knoweth that it is not 



22 THE NEW PIANO. 

The finite many, but the Infinite One, 
That must be sought. 

In that song of thine — 
Sweet as if Elysian 

Breezes fanned the Poet and Musician 
To the sweetness of communion with the Singer's 
predilection- 
Is not the Poet's thought. 

Whether it glow with full-orbed radiance 
Of golden, sunlike splendor. 
Or shine with all its dower 

Of star-like light, as opal soft and tender, — 

Is not that soul-full, perfect thought 
By thy added music brought 
To the very culmination 
Of its beauty and its power, 

In the fulness of perfect utterance ? 

Befitting well that thus the Poet and Musician, 
Twin devotees of Art, in such happy combination 



THE NEW PIANO. 23 

Their offerings combine ! 

Befitting well — because the result of thy endeavor 

Was thus a 'thing of beauty' — that, you know, is a 
'joy forever ! ' 

Befitting well, in sooth ! — for it was thy heart's se- 
lection, 

When in some happiest moment of a higher inspira- 
tion 

'Twas revealed to thy heart in the ?obt' s song divine ! 

Once his — and now made thine, 
To lift our souls on high ! 
Oh, methinks ev'n now I listen 
As successively, transceudently, strain after strain 
doth rise. 

Till all surrounding eyes, 
Burning o'er burning hearts, glow with strange light, 
and glisten. 

But 'tis often in such moments — who can tell us how 
or why? — 



24 THE KEW PIAKO. 

And amid our exultation, — 
Even whilst thy voice is flinging 
Enchantment on the air, — 
That the rapt imagination 
Makes reprisal, not unfair, 
For thine unimagined singing, 
By follovring, keeping nigh, 
In a most adventurous way, — 
Rising with thee as thou risest, to essay 
All the meanings of thy lay — 
Going where thou goest — 
Staying for thy stay — 
Seeing what thou showest, — 
Whether through the dimmest twilight, 
Or the pale, pure streams of moonlight, 
Or the glorious blaze of noonlight. 
Following only thee and thy light. 
To the i)lace of thy abiding — 
Thy soul's high place of hiding — 
In the intensest centre-ray 
Of a more transcendent day. 



THE NEW PIANO. 25 

But when at last tliou ceasest, with such listener it 

is even 
As with a sinful spirit who would venture, unforgiven, 
To approach the shining portals 
Where the songs of the Immortals 
Are borne upon the breezes from the heavenly courts 

within ; 
And there, feeling all the curse of the silence-doom 
of sin. 

Would be as much soul-riven 
As if once more thunder-driven 
Forth from heaven. 

Beautiful GiftedOne ! what high, unutterable thought 

Thy soul may yield ! 
What power, uncomprehended and unsought. 

Thy will may wield ! 

Pray God, that both, 
'Mid heavenliest influences, have heavenliest growth • 

That all thy heart, 
And all thou hast, and all thou art, 



26 THE NEW PIANO. 

Thy soul of thought, thy power of will, 
Be ever where they ought to be — 
With Justice, Truth, and Charity — 
Be on the eight side still. 



27 



THE LAND BEYOND THE 

SEA. 



Once Music fiaslied by look and word 

To Love — when Love was young ! — 
But who can tune again the chord 

By Time's cold hand unstrung? 
By Time's cold hand unstrung, ere long 

Love's harp would silent be, 
But Memory sings Love many a song 

Of the Land beyond the Sea. 

Oh, sweetest Spirit ! oh, youthful Love ! 

With thee I cannot part, 
Still lead me to thy golden grove, 

Imparadise my heart ! — 
Imparadise my heart amidst 

Thy wonder-scenes once more, 



28 THE LAND BEYOND THE SEA. 

Bring dreams and fancies, as thou didst 

In the days and nights of yore. 

« 

One of the thousand dreams that came 

When I was yet a boy — 
Ev'n one — if it were still the same — 

Would make me weep for joy ! 
'T would make me weep for joy, in sooth, 

For Memory's magic wand 
Points to the roseate hours of youth, 

And the glowing morning-land. 

Sweet, yet half sad, in a minor key, 

She sings of Youth's warm prime : — 
Oh, to live one hour of that would be 

Worth an age of lifeless time ! 
Worth an age of lifeless time, which wrongs 

The heart, and hope, and me ! — 
Thus Love and Memory sing their songs 

Of the Land beyond the Sea. 

Sept. 5th, 1867. 



29 



'NOT A sermon; 



TO WILLIAM NEVILLE, ESQ., M. D., ON THE TUBLI- 
CATION OF HIS BOOK. 

Into what dark domain of speculation, 
Dear Doctoh Neville, have you late been roam- 
ing — 
Questioning the great fact of man's Damnation, 

Whereby you have set the Orthodox a-foaming 
At all their mouths — whence soon you '11 hear the 

fellows pour 
Foul blasts of breath wi th fifty pair of bellows power? 

From early times — from Origen, at least — 
Down to PiiOFESSOR Maueice in our own days, 

Thdugli some may've thought as you do, and the 
priest 
May ev'n have left 'damnation' out on Sundays, 



30. NOT A SERMON. 

Yet has the world itself, on the whole, seemed sen- 
sible 
That Hell is needed — nay, is indispensable. 

How deal with sinners, else? In Dante's times, 
For instance, ev'n Hell's seventh and lowest storey 

To him seemed none too deep for men whose crimes 
Went far beyond the reach of Purgatory ! — 

'Poetry?'t— Yes ! But Pkose, too, no less cruel, 

Puts sinners in the category of— fuel I 

Ah! H wont do here — to be so tender-hearted, 
As you are, about sinners, Doctor Neville ; 

People don't like to have objections started 
To other people going to the Devil — 

A 'settled point of doctrine,' which appears old 

Enough for faith — say, three to thirteen hundred 
years old! 

But, Doctor, you'd have had an easier life of it 
To have written no theology !— just look 



. NOT A SERMON. . 31 

At all the cost, and care, and strain, and strife of it ! 

' that mine adversary would write a book ! ' 
Job doubtless thought 'twas ill enough to wish him, 
Knowing the Reverend Critics — how they'd dish 
him ! 

Now, finally, and sixthly — (for 'tis merely 
A song this, not a sermon : — when the latter 

Comes, you shall have sixteenthly ! ) — I'm sincerely^ 
Of this opinion, Doctoe, in the matter. 

Thai Hell is surely worse than xieople think of it. 

Who go on sinning to the very brink of it! 

February 3d, 1857. 



32 



L' ENVOI. 



Lo! God's blue heaven bends o'er all lands and seas, 
And earth's dark breast is lovingly enfolden 
By night with silvern light, by day with golden, 
The evangel and the apocalypse of peace 
To the weary and heavy-laden everywhere, — 
Saying, first, 'Look up!' and when we have beholden 
And pondered well what God hath written there, — 
When in heaven's silent-beaming eyes of love. 
Suffused with love's own effluent light, we 've read 
Heaven's message, and the same interpreted. 
Then adding, 'Come up!' — Aye, there's peace above 
These ' warring elements, ' this ' mortal strife : ' 
O'er this dark world and death, are light, and life, 
And heaven: — so may the anxious heart be com- 
forted. 



